Timorese fighter jail for militiaman murder
Timorese fighter jail for militiaman murder
DILI, East Timor (AP): A rights group on Friday welcomed the conviction of an East Timorese independence fighter for murdering a pro-Indonesian militiaman in the mayhem that engulfed East Timor after it voted for independence in 1999.
The 7-year sentence handed down against Julio Fernandes, a member of the country's main pro-independence guerrilla group Falintil, will encourage ex-militia and refugees currently sheltering in Indonesian West Timor to return home, said Joachin Fonesca, a spokesman for East Timor's leading human rights organization, Yayasan HAK.
"This case shows that the same standards apply to pro- independence and pro-Indonesia supporters," Fonesca said.
An international court convicted Fernandes on Thursday of killing militiaman Americo de Jesus Martins on Sept 25, 1999, in Gleno, 50 kilometers from the capital Dili.
Fernandes is the first Falintil member to be convicted over the violence that followed the United Nations-sponsored ballot in which the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia.
Last month, former militiamen Joao Fernandes was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for murdering a pro-independence supporter during the violence. About 70 other militiamen implicated in the violence are in detention awaiting trial.
Falintil was set up as East Timor's army as the territory's former Portuguese colonizers began departing in 1974. The Indonesian military invaded soon thereafter, and for the next 24 years Falintil fought a guerrilla campaign to oust the Indonesians.
After the UN-sponsored independence vote on Aug. 30, 1999, Indonesian soldiers and their local militia auxiliaries went on a rampage, killing hundreds of people. Much of the province was destroyed.
International peacekeepers stopped the violence and most militiamen fled to Indonesian-held West Timor. The United Nations is administering East Timor during its transition to full independence, expected next year.
On Thursday, the Dili District Court heard how Fernandes stabbed de Jesus Martins to death in a Gleno marketplace after being egged on by a pro-independence mob. The crowd had earlier cut the militiaman's ears off and left him tied to a chair.
Presiding judge Sylver Ntukamazina from Burundi said the punishment was meant to contribute to the process of reconciliation in the territory. Lawyers for Fernandes said they would appeal the verdict.
The trials are seen as an important step forward for East Timor as it struggles to rebuild and bring to justice those responsible for the devastation.
In a legal first for East Timor, UN prosecutors last month filed multiple rape charges against an Indonesian army officer and two anti-independence militia leaders.
The charges are the first by international prosecutors since the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia convicted three Serbs for multiple charges of rape and sexual enslavement during the Bosnian war.
It was the first time sexual enslavement was treated as a crime against humanity.